In 1976, after the Watergate scandal and the country’s withdrawal from the Vietnam War, American voters elected Jimmy Carter, a Washington outsider who had served one term as governor of Georgia, to the presidency. Mr. Carter brought a new humility to the Oval Office but, by 1980, many Americans had tired of his modest sensibility and chose not to re-elect him. As it would turn out, the qualities that hurt Mr. Carter in the White House formed the foundation of a post-presidential period that helped redefine, and redeem, his legacy in the final decades of his life.Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, explains the life, death and legacy of former President Jimmy Carter.Background reading: Read an obituary of Jimmy Carter, whose post-presidency was seen as a model for future commanders in chief.Mr. Carter defied the unwritten rule of former presidents: Don’t criticize the occupant of the Oval Office.In a never-before-seen interview with The Times, in 2006, Mr. Carter reflected on his life and work as a leader during the Cold War, a Middle East peace broker and his post-presidential career as a citizen diplomat.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Full Episode
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. For many, the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who died yesterday at the age of 100, has become synonymous with failure. But as my colleague Peter Baker explains... The very qualities that hurt Carter as president were the foundation of a post-presidency that has both redeemed and rewritten his legacy. It's Monday, December 30th.
Peter, you are a White House reporter who has covered the last five presidents. You're also a historian of the presidency itself. And in those roles, I'm curious how you've been thinking about the life and now the death of Jimmy Carter.
Yeah, it's really interesting, Michael, because, you know, I've spent the last few years writing Jimmy Carter's obituary, and I know that sounds a little weird, but that's something we do at the newspaper, right, to be prepared for these big moments.
And researching and reflecting on his legacy, I've concluded that it's really hard to imagine anybody like Jimmy Carter ever being elected president again. I mean, he was a very unusual man, and it was a very unusual presidency.
Well, talk about that. This unusual man and his unusual presidency. And what, in your mind, is the first chapter of that story that we should understand? Right.
Well, first of all, we should know that Jimmy Carter, it's the American story in the sense of our mythology, how we believe in ourselves. He comes from very humble beginnings in rural Georgia, you know, as a peanut farmer. He wore blue jeans and had dirty fingernails. You know, his childhood home had no running water or electricity. And he was openly religious. He talked about the Bible a lot.
He liked to quote verses from it. By the time he's running for president of the United States, he'd basically been a one-term governor with no connections to Washington. And that meant that he was running a campaign as an outsider.
I see an America poised not only at the beginning of a new century.
Now, I mean, today that's kind of a cliche, right? A lot of people run for president these days as an outsider, but he really was an outsider in every possible sense of that word. It defined his identity, and it defined his campaign, and ultimately it would define his presidency.
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